Azathoth

Azathoth is a fictional deity in the Cthulhu mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. It is referred to in the Weird Tales short stories of Lovecraft, as well as in the stories of other authors. Its epithets include The Blind Idiot God, Seething Nuclear Chaos, the Daemon Sultan, and possibly Lord of All Things. Its avatars include The Madness from the Vaults and Xada-Hgla.

It is sometimes claimed that Azathoth corresponds to a monster or god in Sumerian mythology named "Azag-Thoth". This is not true. "Azag-Thoth" comes from Simon's Necronomicon, which is a fiction based loosely on Sumerian mythology and other things.

Azathoth in the mythos

[O]utside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes...
—H. P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Azathoth is described as both blind and idiotic and is regarded as the head of the Cthulhu mythos pantheon; the most powerful Outer God, but also the least intelligent. Holding court at the center of the universe, Azathoth is attended by a pantheon of nameless, mindless entities known as the Other Gods, a collection of creatures known as the Servitors of the Outer Gods, and the Outer God Nyarlathotep, who immediately fulfills his random urges. Lovecraft referred to Azathoth as a "nuclear chaos" throughout his fiction, though it is not known whether the author employed "nuclear" to mean radioactive energy or simply to refer to Azathoth's central location.

Azathoth and his entourage might be seen as a description of the black hole at the center of the milky way galaxy (Sagittarius A) and its accretion disk.

According to Phileus Sadowsky's Call of Cthulhu rulebook, the name Azathoth is derived from "Izzu Tahuti", or in Akkadian inflection "Ashur-Thoth", which is supposed to mean "Strength of Thoth" in Egyptian. Thoth is identified with the mythos entity known as Nyarlathotep. Azathoth is believed to have been almost infinitely intelligent at one time (though possibly insane), but is now most likely unconscious. The being responsible for Azathoth's condition is probably Nodens, though he has only a fraction of his original power now.

Azathoth's cult

Few worship Azathoth directly; those who do are usually criminally insane. Summoning Azathoth is possible, but often brings disaster to those who do so. Despite this risk, the Insects from Shaggai (the Shan) are fanatical worshippers of Azathoth.

Thomas Ligotti's short story "The Sect of the Idiot" mentions a circle of non-human worshippers composed of wizened, hideous creatures who are under the direct control of the Blind Idiot God himself. The narrator of the story dwells in the highest room of an abandoned building in a small town not named in the narrative.

Xada-Hgla

Xada-Hgla is the avatar of Azathoth worshipped by the Insects from Shaggai, or Shan. Xada-Hgla resembles a huge clam extruding numerous pseudopods. A face with green eyes peers from within.Harms-333

The Shan erected pyramid-shaped temples on the planet Shaggai containing extradimensional gates that allowed Xada-Hgla to enter. Following the destruction of Shaggai, the Shan's last remaining temple of Azathoth—shaped like a tall cone—is found in the Severn Valley in England.Campbell-71

Quotations

I started with loathing when told of the monstrous nuclear chaos beyond angled space which the Necronomicon had mercifully cloaked under the name of Azathoth.
— H. P. Lovecraft, "The Whisperer in Darkness"

Eventually there had been a hint of vast, leaping shadows, of a monstrous, half-acoustic pulsing, and of the thin, monotonous piping of an unseen flute — but that was all. Gilman decided he had picked up that last conception from what he had read in the Necronomicon about the mindless entity Azathoth, which rules all time and space from a curiously environed black throne at the centre of Chaos.

—H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dreams in the Witch House"

... the ancient legends of Ultimate Chaos, at whose center sprawls the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a demoniac flute held in nameless paws.
—H. P. Lovecraft, "The Haunter of the Dark"

The idea of his existence is also faintly suggested in this quote:

I was no more than an irrelevent parcel of living tissue caught in a place I should not be, threatened with being snared in some great dredging net of doom, an incedental shred of flesh pulled out of its element of light and into an icy blackness. In the dream nothing supported my existence, which I felt at any moment might be horribly altered or simply. . .ended. In the profoundest meaning of the expression, my life was of no matter.
—Thomas Ligotti, "The Sect of the Idiot"

References

• Harms, Daniel. The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (2nd ed.), Chaosium, Inc., 1998. ISBN 1-56882-119-0.

Notes

1. ^ Harms, "Xada-Hgla", The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, pp. 333.
2. ^ Ramsey Campbell, "The Insects from Shaggai" (1964), The Azathoth Cycle, pp. 71–92. Robert M. Price (ed.), Oakland, CA: Chaosium, 1995. ISBN 1-56882-040-2.